LINCOLN, Neb. - A federal judge on Wednesday ruled the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional because it does not include a health exception for the woman.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Lincoln followed similar decisions earlier in two other cases.

The abortion ban was signed last year by President Bush (news (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22President%20Bush%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw) - web sites (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=President%20Bush)) but was not enforced because judges in Lincoln, New York and San Francisco agreed to hear evidence in three simultaneous non-jury trials on whether it violates the Constitution.

The rulings are expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

The federal law bars a procedure doctors call "intact dilation and extraction," or D&X, and opponents call partial-birth abortion.

During the procedure, generally performed in the second trimester, a fetus is partially removed from the womb and its skull is punctured or crushed.

The Nebraska lawsuit was filed by New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of abortion provider Dr. LeRoy Carhart and three other physicians. Carhart earlier brought a challenge that eventually led the U.S. Supreme Court (news (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22U.S.%20Supreme%20Court%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw) - web sites (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=U.S.%20Supreme%20Court)) in 2000 to overturn a similar abortion ban that was adopted by Nebraska lawmakers.

Carhart and his lawyers said the federal law is vague and could be interpreted as covering more common, less controversial procedures, including "dilatation and evacuation."

Known as D&E, it is the most common method of second-trimester abortion.

The ban was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade (news (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Roe%20v.%20Wade%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw) - web sites (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=Roe%20v.%20Wade)). It shifted the debate from a woman's right to choose and focused on the plight of the fetus.

Abortion rights advocates said the law was the government's first step toward outlawing abortion.

A total of 1.3 million abortions are performed in the United States each year. Almost 90 percent occur in the first trimester.

An estimated 140,000 D&Es take place in the United States annually, compared with an estimated 2,200 to 5,000 D&X procedures.

Abortion rights supporters argued that a woman's health during an abortion is more important than how the fetus is terminated. They said the banned method is often a safer solution than a conventional abortion, in which the fetus is dismembered in the womb and then removed in pieces.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan said the Supreme Court has made it clear that a law which prohibits the performance of a particular abortion procedure must include an exception to preserve a woman's life and health.

In June, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco also found the law unconstitutional, saying it "poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion."

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional because it does not include a health exception for the woman.

BigMeatballDave

09-08-2004, 09:28 AM

WTF cares?! Partial-birth abortion is straight up phuqin murder! This shit needs to be banned!

DaKCMan AP

09-08-2004, 09:29 AM

WTF cares?! Partial-birth abortion is straight up phuqin murder! This shit needs to be banned!

If complications happen and it comes to aborting the baby or the woman dies and the law says the baby cannot be aborted causing the woman to die -- isn't that murder?

Eleazar

09-08-2004, 09:30 AM

Can you name a circumstance where partial birth abortion is needed to save the mother's life?

KCTitus

09-08-2004, 09:37 AM

Wouldnt it be safer for all involved if the fetus was delivered and destroyed after it's out of the womb?

ZepSinger

09-08-2004, 09:42 AM

If complications happen and it comes to aborting the baby or the woman dies and the law says the baby cannot be aborted causing the woman to die -- isn't that murder?

"With all that modern medicine has to offer, partial-birth abortions are not needed to save the life of the mother, and the procedure’s impact on a woman’s cervix can put future pregnancies at risk."

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, M.D. Letter to the Editor The New York Times, September 26, 1996

"Most partial-birth abortions are performed on healthy mothers with healthy babies," and "there is no obstetrical situation that requires the willful destruction of a partially delivered baby to protect the life, health or future of a woman."

Can you name a circumstance where partial birth abortion is needed to save the mother's life?

No. He can't. :shake:

Saulbadguy

09-08-2004, 09:46 AM

Can you name a circumstance where partial birth abortion is needed to save the mother's life?
Haven't you seen Aliens?

HC_Chief

09-08-2004, 09:47 AM

Haven't you seen Aliens?

hehehe :D

htismaqe

09-08-2004, 09:57 AM

Wouldnt it be safer for all involved if the fetus was delivered and destroyed after it's out of the womb?

Now now. That's murder.

Eleazar

09-08-2004, 10:01 AM

Now now. That's murder.

Yeah, as long as it's still hanging at least one toe inside then it's not murder. :shake:

KC Jones

09-08-2004, 10:36 AM

It's a silly law. Either abortion is legal or it's not. The exact medical methodology used is irrelevant.

I see nothing to be gained from a shift away from the underlying issue and to specifc implementation details.

KCTitus

09-08-2004, 10:38 AM

..I see nothing to be gained from a shift away from the underlying issue and to specifc implementation details.

Really, you dont?

KC Jones

09-08-2004, 10:44 AM

Really, you dont?

no.

what difference does it make if you're aborting via coat hanger, pill, or blender? You're still killing the baby/fetus/zygote/pick-yer-label. Either it's ok to do or it's not. The results are the same.

Mr. Kotter

09-08-2004, 10:51 AM

no.

what difference does it make if you're aborting via coat hanger, pill, or blender? You're still killing the baby/fetus/zygote/pick-yer-label. Either it's ok to do or it's not. The results are the same.

what difference does it make if you're aborting via coat hanger, pill, or blender? You're still killing the baby/fetus/zygote/pick-yer-label. Either it's ok to do or it's not. The results are the same.

Well, I see your point, but as I understand the term abortion, it's a termination of pregnancy. If you deliver the fetus in some fashion either 50%, 75% or 90%, is the woman still pregnant?

Still, incrementalism has proven to be an effective political strategy for all types of issues...

KC Jones

09-08-2004, 11:04 AM

Wow. :spock:

:(

I don't understand what makes it ok to kill a baby/fetus/zygote by one method and not another. If you can explain it to me feel free. I doubt you'll be able to though.

If someone wants to make laws regarding health of the mother or term of pregnancy, etc. I can kind of understand it. However I'd say leave the details up to the medical professionals. What does it matter whether the baby is killed one way vs. the other? Should the "how" be codified into law while skipping past the real issue? That's like having a law saying commiting a murder by a blow to the head is ok if you use a wooden baseball bat but not if you use a pipewrench.

Mr. Kotter

09-08-2004, 11:07 AM

I don't understand what makes it ok to kill a baby/fetus/zygote by one method and not another. If you can explain it to me feel free. I doubt you'll be able to though.

If someone wants to make laws regarding health of the mother or term of pregnancy, etc. I can kind of understand it. However I'd say leave the details up to the medical professionals. What does it matter whether the baby is killed one way vs. the other? Should the "how" be codified into law while skipping past the real issue? That's like having a law saying commiting a murder by a blow to the head is ok if you use a wooden baseball bat but not if you use a pipewrench.

By the same logic, let's re-introduce torture, drawing and quartering, and disembowelment for criminals convicted of....

rape, molestation, and assault--in addition to murders.

After all, though the circumstances are slightly different, people were being hurt with the possibility of death.....so let's fry 'em all. (TIC)

:shake:

KCTitus

09-08-2004, 11:08 AM

That's like having a law saying commiting a murder by a blow to the head is ok if you use a wooden baseball bat but not if you use a pipewrench.

Or with a seringe while in the womb with the rest of the body hanging out?

KC Jones

09-08-2004, 11:12 AM

By the same logic, let's re-introduce torture, drawing and quartering, and disembowelment for criminals convicted of....

rape, molestation, and assault--in addition to murders.

After all, though the circumstances are slightly different, people were being hurt with the possibility of death.....so let's fry 'em all. (TIC)

How is that the same logic? Please explain what you mean. You're arguing for death and torture for crimes that are usually just punishable by prison terms.

RINGLEADER

09-08-2004, 11:33 AM

Can someone post what's involved with this procedure and how something can go wrong with the mother during it?

Mr. Kotter

09-08-2004, 01:37 PM

How is that the same logic? Please explain what you mean. You're arguing for death and torture for crimes that are usually just punishable by prison terms.

You are arguing for an unnecessarily gruesome abortion procedure that dehumanizes life that has been made disposable simply because of a "choice" by a "mother."

(FWIW, first trimester abortions, though morally repugnant are permissable in my view, because at THAT point during pregnancy....the woman's "right to choose" does outweigh the "right to life" of a "fetus." Once that fetus is clearly viable outside the womb, the balance tips the other way....IMHO.)

jettio

09-08-2004, 02:11 PM

Sounds like an awful procedure, but in terms of the courts ruling against the law, there was a previous decision with that same Nebraska doctor as one of the parties, after that law was overturned by the US Supreme Court, Congress passed a law that they must have intended to be outside the reasons that the previous version was overturned.

The three judges in these separate cases were asked to decide whether Congress succeeded in overcoming the grounds that led to the previous law being overturned, and in each case the judges ruled that it had not.

I don't know the specifics, but if Supreme Court precedent indicates one thing, it is not judicial activism to adhere to Supreme Court precedent.

Looks like if the new version is different enough from the previous one to pass Supreme Court muster, it might only be different enough in a small degree and it might be up to the Supreme Court to be the one to rule on its constitutionality.

KC Jones

09-08-2004, 02:20 PM

You are arguing for an unnecessarily gruesome abortion procedure that dehumanizes life that has been made disposable simply because of a "choice" by a "mother."

1) No I'm not.

2) What invasive surgical procedure isn't gruesome?

3) What abortion procedure is acceptibly non-gruesome?

4) What abortion procedures do not dehumanize life?

DanT

09-08-2004, 02:52 PM

over 1 million abortions a year

from a country whose government goes through hundreds and thousands of dollars per year per citizen prosecuting military operations against people in other lands, people whose threat potential to us is tiny and could be easily protected against

pray for their souls, the souls of both the slaughtered and of the slaughtering, especially those who profit from the lies that justify it

Eleazar

09-08-2004, 02:58 PM

Still waiting to hear under what circumstances a partial-birth abortion is needed for health reasons.

Saulbadguy

09-08-2004, 02:58 PM

Still waiting to hear under what circumstances a partial-birth abortion is needed for health reasons.
I am curious as well.

KCWolfman

09-08-2004, 05:16 PM

Still waiting to hear under what circumstances a partial-birth abortion is needed for health reasons.
When the lazy broad has decided in the third trimester that an Expedition won't due and she can't afford the Navigator with an extra kid.